According to a document filed on May 31 in the United States District Court of Connecticut, the legal teams representing both World Wrestling Entertainment and Brock Lesnar met to plan out the “next phase” of Lesnar’s current lawsuit against WWE. Lesnar is currently petitioning for a judgment by the court with WWE fighting it, allowing for the door to become open for an expected discovery period.
The meeting between both paries allowed the parameters of Lesnar vs. WWE to be presented. Lesnar’s attorneys have asked that the court make a summary judgment on the case based on their filing in May and do not want any pleadings amended or any discovery periods to take place on their end, allowing them to wait for the court to render a decision. So, at this point, Lesnar’s people are hoping that the court will make the decision to side with them and if any issues are not met to their satisfaction then they will move forward with the remaining key points of their case against WWE. It would be wise of them at this point to get the issue handled quietly and as swiftly as possible.
When this took place, WWE moved to block a summary judgment, noting strongly that there has been no discovery period performed by either party and petitioned that “because there are numerous material factual issues raised in the pleadings, this case is not ripe for summary judgment.” The goal of WWE at this point is to push the case to a trial where they will have a legitimate shot at shooting down Lesnar’s claims while defending what they stood by in their response. Both parties have made it clear that a settlement is unlikely between the two.
WWE’s discovery period started on June 1 and is scheduled to end in September. WWE informed the court that they will be handling an International discovery in regards to Lesnar’s “alleged” negotiations with New Japan Pro Wrestling and his appearance for the promotion earlier this year in January. WWE has also requested that they have until July 15 to add additional parties or amend their pleadings in the case that they uncover new facts that may prove to be beneficial to their defense of the lawsuit. The scheduled ending in September could be extended as well if that becomes the case. The gist of the focus in WWE’s discovery period will focus on the circumstands regarding the two sides coming to a settlement agreement back in March of 2004 that Lesnar signed and what all of the specifics truly are. It should also be noted that both sides do not expect to file more than 25 interrogatories, which are a set of written questions proposed by one side that are required to be answered by the other in order to clarify matters of evidence and help to determine in advance what facts will be presented during the trial.
